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Fox's Maria Bartiromo (far left) moderates a panel discussion by Dallas Fed president Richard W. Fisher (middle) and San Francisco Fed president John C. Williams (far right) at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.

Two presidents of the regional Federal Reserve banks today agreed that the nation’s central bank had to take unusual steps to right the economy and discussed, but didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything.

“There’s a little confusion as to the role of the central bank,” Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said at a monetary policy conference at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas. “I like to say we just modernized the playbook.”

Fisher was joined in a panel discussion by John C. Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed. Fox’s Maria Bartiromo moderated the discussion.

“We had to take these extraordinary measures based on what was going on in the economy,” Williams said. “We are moving to normalization now. We’re thinking about the time – maybe next year or so — when we’ll start raising interest rates and such.”

Former President George W. Bush makes remarks during the Monetary Policy and the Economy on Monday at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

The Fed’s monetary policies have helped to improve the U.S. economy and global economies, but they must be monitored going forward to make sure asset bubbles don’t form, Williams said. The nation’s low interest rates — near zero since 2008 — have improved the U.S. economy, he said.

Fisher noted that Texas and California are the nation’s two largest job creators, partly due to their size. Still, he asked why is Texas’ unemployment rate (5.2 percent in April) so much lower than California’s rate (7.8 percent in April). Fisher attributed the difference to less fiscal and government policies in Texas.

Asked where they see growth in the U.S. economy, Fisher said Texas (information technology to be specific). Williams said biotechnology.

Fisher and Williams did not see eye to eye on everything.

“Inflation is not a concern,” Williams said. “If anything, the problem that we – and most advanced economies face and I just got back from Asia – is too low of inflation. We have an exit strategy and we’re ready to implement it.”

Fisher said the nation has “warded off deflation,” but there’s “a lot of inflationary tinder out there.” Americans are not preoccupied with inflationary concerns, which is a good thing, he said.

Fisher is a Fed hawk, meaning he worries more about inflation. Williams is a Fed dove who is more focused on jobs.

Fisher believes in looking back to look ahead.

“We’re not going to prevent future financial crisis but we can temper them,” Fisher said. “It’s very hard to see something coming down the pike. Our eyes should have been more open.”

Fisher who has been president of the Dallas Fed since 2005, is a voting member of the Fed’s policy setting committee this year. Williams, who has been president of the San Francisco Fed since 2011, does not vote this year.

The number of U.S. long-term unemployed – those out of work for at least six months — has improved in the last few years, but it remains “abnormally high … creating substantial hardship for many people,” wrote Rob Valletta, a research adviser at the San Francisco Fed in the report.

People out of work a long time represent a higher share of the nation’s unemployed. For example, the unemployment share of those out of work 99 weeks or more rose from about 6 percent in late 2009 to 14 percent late last year, Valletta said.

The report found that long-term unemployed people face more obstacles to finding work (see chart below) during economic expansions and downturns — similar to past years.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco calculations based on monthly Current Population Survey data by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Who are these long-term unemployed? Older workers, blacks and people who previously worked in the manufacturing or financial industries tend to be unemployed longer since the end of the recession in mid-2009, according to the report.

Valletta found that persistent high long-term unemployment in an improving labor market raises the possibility that a large share of joblessness is structural — or essentially permanent. However, he concluded that a sustained economic recovery would fix the long-term unemployment problem.